Image by: Kevin Woblick
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Yo Soy Betty, La Fea first aired on RCN Televisión in Colombia in 1999. Created by Fernando Gaitán, it ran for 335 episodes and became the most successful telenovela in television history, a title it holds officially in the Guinness World Records. It has been broadcast in over 180 countries, dubbed into 25 languages, and adapted more than 30 times worldwide. The US version, Ugly Betty, ran for four seasons on ABC. Mexico made its own version. So did India, Russia, Germany, and Greece, among others.

The story at the centre of all of it is Betty Pinzón Solano, played by Ana María Orozco. An economist with a first-class mind and an appearance that every fashionable person around her considers a liability. She takes a secretarial job at the prestigious fashion house Ecomoda because her CV keeps getting rejected. What follows is 335 episodes of workplace humiliation, corporate scheming, a love story built on manipulation that eventually becomes something real, and a woman who ends up running the company that once dismissed her.

25 years after it first aired, Digital i tracked how audiences in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico engaged with it on Prime Video between January 2024 and March 2026. Here is what the data shows.

1. Number one on Prime Video. Ahead of everything else on the platform.

Across the measurement period, Yo Soy Betty, La Fea generated 1.4 billion streams on Prime Video across four markets. It was the most streamed title on the platform. It also accumulated 497 million hours of viewing, again first on Prime Video.

The average account watched 101.3 hours and 120 episodes. A catalogue title from 1999, performing ahead of every new release, every original, and every other licensed title on Prime Video in these markets. That is not nostalgia driving the numbers. That is an audience actively choosing to spend their time with this show, in numbers that no other title on the platform matched.

2. Only The Big Bang Theory out-streamed it across all four platforms.

When you expand the lens beyond Prime Video and look at the romance genre across Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, and HBO Max combined, Yo Soy Betty, La Fea ranked second overall with 1,399.4 million streams and 496.6 million viewer hours.

The only title ahead of it was The Big Bang Theory on HBO Max with 2,189.8 million streams. Behind Betty sat Grey's Anatomy at 1,194.6 million, Friends at 998.7 million, and Bridgerton at 702.2 million. A 25-year-old Colombian telenovela, out-streaming three of the most globally recognised English-language titles in the romance category. In four LATAM markets, across the full streaming landscape, that is where Betty sits.

3. 124.4 million hours of ad-supported viewing.

26% of Yo Soy Betty, La Fea's total viewing time on Prime Video came from ad-supported accounts. That is 124.4 million hours of viewing where every hour represents monetisable advertising inventory served against a single title. For a catalogue title with no marketing spend behind it in this period, that is a significant commercial number.

4. Over a million accounts watched all 335 episodes.

335 episodes. That is not a weekend binge. Watching every episode of Yo Soy Betty, La Fea from start to finish would take well over 100 hours. More than a million accounts did exactly that. The average account watched 120 episodes, completing 35.8% of the full series. For a show a quarter of a century old, with no new episodes in this period, that depth of engagement is not something that happens by accident.

5. If a 25-year-old telenovela can do this, what is your catalogue worth?

Yo Soy Betty, La Fea has no new episodes in this period. No new season. No reboot. Just the original show, sitting on Prime Video, pulling 1.4 billion streams and finishing ahead of every other title on the platform.

That is what library content value looks like when you can actually measure it. And it raises a question that any rights holder should be asking: if this is what Betty is worth to Prime Video in four markets, what is your title worth to the platform currently licensing it?

Digital i builds dollar valuations for library and licensed content catalogues, turning real audience data into the commercial picture a platform negotiation actually requires. Reach, hours viewed, ad-supported inventory, subscriber value, repeat engagement. The full analysis, expressed in terms that matter at the table.

If you want to see the full sample report or run this analysis on your own catalogue, get in touch.

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Source: Digital i. Active Prime Video accounts in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. 01/01/2024 – 31/03/2026. Category benchmark: Active Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ and HBO Max accounts, genre string contains 'Romance'. 01/01/2024 – 31/03/2026.

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